The present invention relates to supports for small objects, more especially, although not exclusively, plastics forms, e.g. spheres, which are coated for example with material to react, in a process of analysis, with biological fluids or solutions thereof.
Certain chemicals, for example the globulin fraction of antiserum against alpha-fetoprotein, may be absorbed or covalently bonded to solid phases such as the plastic polystyrene. This absorption or bonding is utilized in the determination of, for example, the concentration of alpha-fetoprotein in human blood serum. The testing procedures normally used have involved bringing the chemical and the solid phase onto which it is to be absorbed or covalently bonded into contact with each other manually. Typically, two different types of manual procedures have been used; either a plastics solid form has been dipped or immersed in the appropriate coating solution, or the inside surface of a plastics tube-like container has been coated by filling the container with the coating solution and then emptying. The coated forms may then be used to determine the concentration of an analyte in a sample. Each stage of this analysis has required a manual transfer which is time consuming, leads to poor precision, in measurement, causes problems in maintaining patient identity and is expensive.
Plastics forms have been supported, in solution for coating, washing, or reaction in analysis, by stems which in turn have been supported from above. From the point of view of expense and convenience in manufacture and packing, and, at least, of convenience in use, it is preferable to do away with such supporting stems and use, for example, a plain sphere as the plastics form.
It has been conventional in various industries, for coating, washing or draining of objects, to support them singly, or in numbers in a perforated container. However, the problems of chemical analysis to which, in particular, plastics forms are applied, requires minimal contact of the support means support with the plastics form. This minimal contact allows maximal circulation of fluid around the plastics form, and also maximal drainage on withdrawal from the fluid. It is also highly desirable that the plastics form be able to move in relation to the support. In medical work, in particular, maintenance of patient identity requires that each plastics form has its own individual support. The present invention meets these requirements to a very large extent and provides a means for supporting plastics forms so that they may easily be inserted into apparatus, used for analysis, and then removed from the apparatus.